2019 Sustainable Business Report

SAFARICOM SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS REPORT 2019 INTRODUCTION OUR BUSINESS OUR MATERIAL TOPICS STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT CONCLUDING REMARKS 82 THE MEDIA Over the last three years, we have sought proactively to cultivate an understanding of how the SDGs can support private sector growth, and made concerted efforts to share this knowledge with the media and general public through opinion pieces, interviews and media events. This has created more opportunities for local media to make reference to our work when covering the SDGs, positioning us as a thought leader in this space. In September 2018 we held a sustainability workshop for news editors from all electronic, print and digital news agencies to build awareness of sustainability among key newsroom decision makers as a topical issue for business news coverage, highlighting the role of the media in championing sustainable business practices. We have reviewed the way we communicate with the media to counter message fatigue, which proved a key issue last year. We segmented our engagements by region and subject matter, communicating only what was relevant to consumers, news outlets and their audiences based on their geographical areas and subject matter, such as technology, business, entertainment, sports, etc. We continue to deepen our media engagement beyond content sharing by hosting formal and informal media engagements which allow us the opportunity to reinforce our brand narrative, listen to media concerns and feedback, and thus build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with them. In the last financial year, we held five such engagements: Region/Interest Attendance* North Eastern 20 Coast 100 Nairobi 100 Western and Nyanza 100 Rift Valley 50 * Number of journalists